SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet network experienced one of its most significant outages to date on Thursday, temporarily cutting off tens of thousands of users worldwide.
The disruption, which began around 3 p.m. ET, lasted approximately 2.5 hours before services were largely restored, according to Michael Nicolls, Starlink’s vice president of engineering.
Downdetector, a crowdsourced outage tracking platform, logged over 61,000 user reports during the peak of the incident. Users from North America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia reported being affected, with many citing a “total blackout” and connection errors such as “no healthy upstream.”
Nicolls confirmed on X that the outage stemmed from a failure in key internal software services that control Starlink’s core network.
Elon Musk echoed the sentiment, posting, “Sorry for the outage. SpaceX will remedy root cause to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”
The outage is notable for Starlink, which is known for its reliability, even in harsh or remote environments. The satellite internet service, which serves over 6 million customers across more than 140 countries and territories, has become a critical tool for rural communities, emergency responders, and even militaries.
In Canada, for example, Starlink has been credited with maintaining connectivity during wildfire evacuations and supporting remote education and telehealth services.
The incident comes as SpaceX continues to expand the Starlink constellation, with over 8,000 satellites launched since 2020. The company is also developing direct-to-cell capabilities, enabling emergency text messaging in rural areas without traditional network coverage.
